As a result of accurate long-range strikes, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have significantly disrupted the logistics and ammunition supply of Russian forces in the southern region.
Natalia Humeniuk, Chief of the Unified Coordination Press Center of the Southern Defense Forces, reported that the Russian occupiers are experiencing a severe shortage of munitions, despite still conducting 50-60 daily bombardments.
“We continue to target and destroy their depots and supply lines, preventing them from replenishing their depleted resources. The ammunition depots they had set up on the left bank of the Dnpro have already been neutralized. Their efforts to reinforce them are becoming increasingly challenging,” stated Natalia Humeniuk during a televised marathon.
The disruption in the occupiers’ logistics can be attributed to the damage inflicted on the Chongar Bridge, forcing Russia to resort to bypass routes for transporting military cargo.
Implications and challenges of logistics disruption: Defense Express’ analysis
Defense Express notes that even if a critical infrastructure like a bridge is temporarily repaired, its full operational capacity cannot be guaranteed. For example, the Crimean Bridge prohibits the passage of freight vehicles weighing over 1.5 tons. While there is still a connection to occupied Crimea through the Armenian Border, it introduces unnecessary complications and strains the transportation network, similar to the situation with the automobile route along the Azov Sea.
Furthermore, the analysis takes into account the considerable volume of military cargo that requires daily transportation. Calculations demonstrate that supplying a single battalion tactical group of the Russian army necessitates 17 daily flights of cargo trucks and fuel tankers.
Russia retains the option of organizing ferry crossings through the Kerch Strait, utilizing ten large landing ships. However, the logistics heavily rely on exits from the peninsula, and shipments by sea to the currently occupied ports in the Azov Sea region are exposed to Ukrainian long-range weapons.
Railway transportation poses its challenges, concentrating ammunition at junction stations and unloading points, which also fall within the range of Ukrainian long-range weaponry.
Although this analysis does not suggest an immediate cessation of hostilities, it does indicate that the same mechanism influences the overall combat capability of the adversary, ultimately contributing to the potential liberation of Ukrainian territories. A comparable scenario was successfully executed during the liberation of Kherson, but the current scale of disruption is considerably larger.
